


There Are No Age Categories In 5th Edition

by Nausicaä Harris (Mort_Harris)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Post-Canon, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts, also ft. a few of my specific headcanons, also seriously don't read if you haven't heard the finale, and a lot of wanky neurobiology, if there's more content warnings necessary tell me, it does play off of that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 05:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11845233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mort_Harris/pseuds/Nausica%C3%A4%20Harris
Summary: Magnus has a bad Candlenights. Angus offers a helping ear.





	There Are No Age Categories In 5th Edition

Your name is Angus McDonald, world's greatest detective. You graduated from "boy detective" eight years ago and "mystery-solving teen" about fifteen months ago, and now you're just … a detective. You tried to grow a grizzled five-o'clock shadow but everyone laughed at you. (You did look pretty ridiculous.)  
You trialed teaching positions both at the Academy of Arcane Sciences and the Amazing School of Magic, but ultimately you decided to forge your own path - your found family has, truly, been an enormous positive influence in your life, and you want to honor their legacy, you truly do, but you want to honor it yourself. Your experience teaching has been great for your career prospects, but you've got your own plans in mind: you're going to start this world's Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. It'll take time, definitely, but you have the technological support of the Bureau of Benevolence, the research power of the AAS and ASM, your own smarts, and, most importantly, the fact that _literally every person in the world_ heard a little bit about how cool interplanar travel was, about the staggering of infinity of worlds still out there to explore. The IPRE has enormous public support, and while you wouldn't use the Light of Creation even if the Creators dropped _another_ one, you and your good friend Mavis Highchurch-Roughridge have started work on the first design of a completely mortal-crafted Bond Engine.

But tonight? Tonight is Candlenights, and you're not going to bore everyone with new ways to harness the connections between everything. Tonight, you're going to eat, make merry, and celebrate a pan-religious, pan-sexual, pan-everything holiday, gods dammit. (You are, of course, given to overanalyze the holiday - humanoids of every stripe want to eat and make merry as the sun dims and ice claws at them, a simple enough drive to understand, no matter what other meanings people bring to Candlenights - but knowing how to cast a spell doesn't make it any less magical, and for your money, turning over the dark days at the middle of winter is still a good enough reason to celebrate.)

The crew of the Starblaster, the BOB employees they befriended, and their families all get together for major festivals. Sometimes, one or two of you can't make it due to other obligations, sometimes more; this Highharvesttide it was just you and Lucretia sitting awkwardly near the head of a banquet table. But this Candlenights, everyone made it, and you're all brimming with happiness. Potluck tends to be the name of the game - sure, you have two professional chefs in the party, but they'd rather not get typecast, and making good food for a feast is a pleasure that everyone should get to enjoy. Lucretia and the Fangbattle-Crushbones are hosting this year, aboard the floating Bureau of Benevolence headquarters. You and Lucretia have slow-roasted your Candlenights venison to perfection; Carey and Killian and their daughter Susan assembled a towering salad, spicy with radishes and arugula (you helped Susan fold the napkins into fancy little designs). Davenport was the first to arrive - he didn't always make it, but the seas were kind to him this year, and he brought a pot of dumplings made to a Shou Lung recipe. The Taaco clan arrived next - Lup and Barry and baby Lena with potatoes mashed, smashed, roasted, fried, and latke'd; and Taako and Kravitz and little Joaquin with a staggering platoon of pies. Merle showed up, late as usual, with Mavis and Mookie, baskets overflowing with squashes and parsnips and carrots - and, as a first, Mavis and Mookie's other parents, Hekuba and her new fiancee Nordris, who baked a traditional dwarven Yule log you could probably build a functional cabin with. (It was surprisingly delicious nonetheless.)

Magnus, though? Magnus was, unusually, almost absent. Just as you'd finally decided you couldn't wait any longer and had sat down and started to say grace, he rushed into the hall, still shaking snow from his hair and fur cloak, slamming down a cask of eggnog like the younger, burlier sort of winter demigod. He brushed off his absence as related to a crisis at the Hammer and Tails, and the nog was, you must say, of quite excellent quality, now that you are able to legally partake. If any of the others noticed, they didn't say anything. But you are the world's greatest detective, and you yourself couldn't help but notice that Magnus was lying. He's like an older brother; you've learnt his tells. It's a reflex, honestly, and you know, as easily as you know the schools of magic, that if there is a crisis at the Hammer and Tails, it lies with the proprietor. You hold your tongue (you are good at holding your tongue) and watch intently (as you watch most things) as your wonderful family eats and jokes and celebrates throughout the night.

As the night draws on, you all bundle up and parade out onto the Moonbase's main courtyard, mugs of nog and cocoa warm in your hands as Lup treats you to a staggering display of pyrotechnics, burning brightly in the cold night sky. Susan helps out this year; her Aunt Lup was there for her when she needed someone who could teach her _Calmasis' corporeal comfort_ , and they've grown close over the past year. Susan's still too young to put up anything but random sparks, but she's already starting to show signs of becoming a talented sorcerer. You all cheer and clap approvingly, laughing as Lup belatedly remembers that there are kids in the audience and hastily censors the swear words she started skywriting. But there's a distinct lack of ham-sized hands smacking together or booming barrel chests, and, concern genuinely beginning to grow within you, you apply your detective senses to the problem. You hardly need to cast _locate creature_ to track Magnus down to the hangar.

Avi's off-duty, probably getting smashed as is his wont and right. Magnus is alone, struggling with the transport cannon controls as wind whips about the open hangar door. "Magnus, sir?" you call out.  
He very explicitly doesn't jump in surprise; it would take a detective to see the suppressed motion. You, however, are a detective, and add it to your list of clues. Magnus whips about, face curling into a blinding smile. "Yo! What's up, my not-so-little man?"  
"How are … how are you doing, sir? Ordinarily you at least say goodbye."  
Magnus laughs, looking you dead in the eyes - a look you know that, when accompanied with a smile, accompanies some serious bullshit. "Shit, I knew there was something I was forgetting! I just thought Johann's probably missing his daddy and I should get home and see him; woulda brought him along, but, y'know, do I even need to say it at this point?"  
You laugh drily. "No, sir, I don't think you do." You approach cautiously, holding your cocoa out like a shield. "Will you at least say goodbye to me, sir?"  
"Yeah! Bye, Angus! Happy Candlenights! Now, I really oughtta get going …"  
You sigh and roll your eyes. "Please don't make me cast _zone of truth_ , sir."

Magnus deflates like a trockbladder, slowly walking over to the open hangar door. He sits down heavily, legs dangling out over the empty air. You follow, still keeping your movements guarded and still.  
"You know how, when you're up high, all you can think about is jumping? Like - it horrifies you, but you keep visualizing it over and over, the sensation of falling through empty air until you just -" He claps his hands together loudly.  
"It's called _l'appelle du vide_ , sir. 'Appeal of the void'." You dangle just your feet into the air, trusting your purchase a little less.  
"I don't have the horror anymore, Angus."  
"Sir?"  
"Only thing keeping me from jumping right now is, well, I still have people who want me alive." He sees your hand move towards your wand and holds up his hands. "No, I don't need a _feather fall_ , thanks. I'm not gonna do something that stupid. I just … I'm worried, little buddy. That last stop looks … attractive."  
You pass him your mug of cocoa; he takes it gratefully. You wrap your arms around your knees, rocking back and forth. Right now, you don't think you have something to say, and Magnus fills the silence again after a minute.  
"I'm sorry, Ango. I should've said something earlier. I kinda wanna blame it on this world not having the kind of medicine my homeworld did, but that's probably just justifications. There's gotta be therapists here somewhere, right? 'Specially with the way the world's coming around? I just … I dunno. I didn't really want to be at the party tonight. Didn't feel like I could come with this weighing down on me, spoiling the evening; I eventually came 'cause I felt like I had to give proof of life, you know?"  
"And I at least am grateful for it." You can feel your voice getting more stilted as you sense where this conversation is going. You've never handled yourself well around humanoids having these impulses. "Would you … would you like to talk about it, sir?"

Magnus doesn't answer for a while, looking out over the sea below. "I just … look. You're probably expecting some cliché speech about how I can't deal with all the happy marriages, happy kids here, right?" He laughs with a cruelty you've never heard from Magnus before. "Deadwife Sadguy Burnsides, mourning the family he never got to have!" His eyes narrow as he settles his hands on his thighs. "I can deal! I can! I love kids. I truly do. And … Mavis and Mookie? Susan? Lena? Joaquin? I love getting to be a part of these families. Julia never really wanted kids; this is more than I ever asked for!"  
You read the mood and switch to the right code. "World's greatest detective, sir. Please don't slander my abilities by assuming I'd expect anything like that from you." You were in fact prepared for such a speech, but you thought it highly unlikely.  
"Tell me, bro. What _were_ you expecting?"  
"You don't want to contemplate having to grow old and die outside of glorious battle, sir?" you lie. You deliberately tamp down your assumptive capacity in these situations; to have expectations in such a scenario always works badly.  
"Nope!" Magnus waggles a finger. "I joined the Bureau to have a cause worth dying for; I started the Hammer and Tails to hold on to having a cause worth living for. My life is as smooth as a well-varnished chair leg, and I don't want to leave that behind."  
"Do I have to speculate, sir, or are you looking for an excuse to share?"  
Magnus sighs and drains the rest of your cocoa. "Ango? I don't wanna die because I feel like I don't deserve this. I don't wanna die to hurry up and see Julia. I wanna die because everyone keeps forgetting that I've lived long enough."  
You are, admittedly, dumbfounded.

"I don't think I'd even have to do anything stupid, really," he continues. "Kravitz? Lup? Barry? Any one of them could help me out easy as that." Magnus makes a chopping motion with his hand.  
You search for something to say and come up with, "Didn't they clear your death record?"  
Magnus looks at you. "Ango? I'm a hundred and forty-two. A _hundred_ and forty- _two_. Sure, I lost a hundred years to Fisher, but … that all came back. Merle? The twins? Cap'nport? They can all live that long! Me? I'm a human! I can go maybe to a hundred! By rights, I should have shuffled - I should've done an acrobatic fucking _pirouette_ \- off this mortal coil! Oh, I know we're still settled with the Raven Queen, but … how do Barry and Lucretia _deal_ with it?! They didn't even have the luxury of _forgetting_ any of it! My brain feels like it'll pop like a grape!"  
"Did you try … talking to them? Wait, how'd you deal with being a hundred-whatever on your voyage?"  
"On my voyage? I dealt with it by _running for my fucking life_ , Angus. No angst, it was 'move or die'. You got a year, now GO!" Magnus slaps his hands together right by your ears.  
"That makes sense. Barry and Lucretia, though?" you ask, recomposing yourself.  
"Doesn't worry them! Barry willingly tore his soul outta his body that one time, stares into the eyes of eternity every day and then bones down with her, and Lucretia just made peace with it like the gods-damn badass she is! Yeah, she's got some coping mechanisms - I asked, I tried - but none of them worked for me."  
He shakes his head, a few strands of steel starting to show in his glossy black curls. "I just … I've lived enough! Oh, I _can_ keep going at it hammer and tails, but do I really _need_ to? Feels … I dunno, selfish, almost. I'm … bad at articulating this, feel bad for even bringing it up. Bringing it here. That's where Magnus is at, Angus: dealing with some shit."  
He spits off of the hangar. "Happy fuckin' Candlenights."  
You sigh, and with it comes a tinge of sadness, like the frost that silvers the night. You can help - there's a very easy way you can help - but Resehavanar's Choice is never an easy one to make …  
"Magnus?"  
"Yeah, li'l bro?"  
"I'm a lot older than I look too."  
"Angus?"

It is a relief, now, after a decade keeping the charade up - it's not that long, but it still feels like a weight lifting. The dweomers that have bound you in this small form slip away into the cold night air. Wings flutter forward; flesh silvers and hardens; ice crackles in your lengthening throat like a glass of water after a hot summer day. You are not a big dragon, and, honestly, not a very old one. But you are still a dragon, and even Magnus would jump. You say, "I'm only one hundred and twenty-one, sir, but I know what you're going through."  
Magnus relaxes and grins. "Well, you still sound like Angus. Ain't you full of surprises?"  
"Really just this one, sir." You coil your tail around him; he settles into it without hesitation.  
"Wanna share why you've been disguising yourself as a flesh boy?"  
"The augmentation of the complexity and intensity of the field of intelligent life, sir. The detecting and the space startup are merely ways to study and assist humanoids."  
Magnus laughs. "You sound like the old IPRE public relations team."  
"This is … pretty much how dragons talk, sir."  
"Guess I gotta trust you on that one, bro. There a … reason you're sharing this now?"  
"You know how, on your planar journey, you interfered with, oh, a few score societies, sir? Dragons would consider you recklessly irresponsible were you not the literal heralds of an apocalypse. One should pursue a policy of noninterference until such time as revealing your true nature is necessary to avert greater harm." You stretch a hesitant wing over him, looking at the stars rather than his face.  
Magnus is wordless; you hear his lips moving through the last sentence. "I'm … worth dropping your cover identity for, li'l man?"  
"You're a thinking creature, sir. Anything less would tarnish my scales."  
"Literally or figuratively?"  
"Probably the latter, although that doesn't make it any less of a reason."  
"That's … gods, kid - Wait, can I still call you kid? What's a hundo twenty-one in dragon years?"  
"I am a young adult dragon. What you do with that information is up to you."  
"Then … gods, kid. Now you sound like Julia."  
"May I take that as a compliment?"  
Magnus doesn't respond. You scratch your flank with your horns, and continue.

"When I turn into a human, sir, it's not illusion, nor is it conjuration - shunting my dragon body into an extradimensional pocket while I project a human form. It is transmutation." You shrink back into a young human man wearing his Candlenights best. Simulating humanoid aging for your family - the first humanoids with whom you ever actually formed a connection more than tenuous - has been and continues to be a really interesting magical challenge. "My physical form decreases. I lose mass. Even in the form of an adult, I suddenly have to think dragon thoughts with an organ the size of a large bread roll, sir, and it is not pleasant. I don't have quite as many memories as you, but every day I have to try to deal with, say, watching a slyth boy who toyed with the Fluvenilstra mail system turn into a chief druid barely able to maintain his surface tension, with a lump of wrinkled fat that starts giving up after half the memories I have."  
Magnus finally turns to look at you and gulp, eyes wide in an attempt to gratify you. "Harsh, dude."  
You sigh and slip back into dragon form. "I'm not trying to posture here, sir. I'm trying to offer you some help, since you've got that same lump of wrinkled fat trying to deal with even more memories. It's hard for me to walk among you and not want to die when my friends do. I have the luxury of knowing it's not real, which you do not, but … I still think I can help, if you want it."  
Magnus stretches back on the floor of the hangar, folding his arms under his head. "Shoot."  
"What I tell myself is that it's a gift. I got to know Boom for all of his muddy life, and other friends all across Faerûn. I got to meet you and Taako and Merle and all the rest of the Bureau and the Institute. I got to meet the people who saved the fucking world, sir!" You tap him on the chest with your tail. "We won, sir! You found a cause worth living for and you _fucking won_. You have friends. Some of them might not be here anymore, like Boom isn't around anymore for me, but - I've seen a lot of humanoids, and they all want to spend time with their friends! You've had unfathomable amounts of time, time that few humans ever get to experience! I know it's hard to think those thoughts with those brain meats of yours, but this is what you fought for! These are the people you always wanted to protect! _You've protected them! You can get to enjoy it!_ "

You fold your wings and smooth back your frills, panting with excitement. "I'm not asking you to be grateful all the time, sir; that'd be an incredibly shitty thing to do. But I am telling you that there's something to be grateful for in all this, and that something is worth the pain of using your little mammal brain to experience it."  
Magnus is quiet for a good minute or so, and you busy yourself looking at the twinkling stars tracing out the boundaries of the Prime Material Plane. With little warning, Magnus suddenly breaks into a booming guffaw and grabs your tail, hauling himself upright and then tackling you to the ground. "Dammit, Ango, why'd'you have to go and be so … Angus all the time? I was being Oldman Sadguy Burnsides and you had to spout about the magic of friendship and it _worked_."  
You whistle a brief jet of paralytic gas and knock Magnus off you as he clenches up, immobilized. You chuckle back. "Dragons can still be autistic, dipshit. Big, stilted speeches are one of my symptoms even when I speak through serrated fangs."  
He laughs, too, when his muscles let him again. "Fair point." He climbs up onto your back to noogie you. You turn back into a flesh boy and evade him, leading him on a laughing chase back up to the main observation deck. Carey smirks at you when you return. "Did you two sneak off to have a bonding moment, space cowboys?"  
"We did. He's agreed to come talk to me about space issues whenever he needs to," you say, smirking back.  
"I did?" says Magnus, before sighing and nodding. "Yeah, I did. I have your stone of farspeech, I'll call you."  
"Sounds good." You beam, slipping him a brief glimpse of the aforementioned serrated fangs.  
"Did I ruin Candlenights?" Magnus asks, as you help shift sleepy children into Bureau bunks.  
"Let's see. You saw your friends, ate, made merry, and forged emotional connections. Magnus, I think you did the opposite of ruining."  
You smell the blood rise under his face. "W-what'd I say about being so Angus?"  
"Happy fuckin' Candlenights, sir."

**Author's Note:**

>  ~~holy shit i actually wrote a complete fanfic~~ Thank you Griffin McElroy for creating such a wonderful world and plotline and thank you Justin, Travis, and Clint McElroy for engaging with it and creating a truly beautiful story. I'm so incredibly grateful for these four idiots who played D &D so hard they made themselves cry.  
> Me too, McElroys. Me too.


End file.
